"THE HOUSE OF WISDOM"--- By Remsha Jhutt

There was a great intellectual center during the Golden Age of Islam. It was known as the house of wisdom. Haroon Al Rasheed, the caliph of Abbasids in Baghdad built a scientific academy. Where he invited scholars from all the corners of the world to contribute their knowledge. Caliph Al Rasheed was personally found of the knowledge of philosophy and poetry. To make it a treasure of books. He made this academy a huge bookstore of manuscripts about various subjects.

There were a society of scientists and academics. This society works with the three basic departments of Translation, contribution and observatory. Middle Eastern Syric Oriental Christian Scholars inaugurated the translation department by translating the ancient Greek philosophic text of Aristotle’s topic. Further they translated Pythagoras, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. After translating each part they revised their work to correct it and to add more in it. Translators, authors, men of letters, copyists and scribes conducted meetings every day for translation, reading, writing, dialogue and discussion. Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Syric, Greek, Aramaic and Latin were the languages which were mostly spoken, read and written. There was another important language used to translate the old Indian manuscripts in astronomy and mathematics. That language was Sanskrit.

There were a gallery in the house of wisdom. In which they did not just worked on the previous knowledge to extract it from various languages but also produced new research and contribute it to the House of Wisdom. Famous Muslim mathematician Al-Khawarizmi worked and contributed in the development of Algebra. He developed many Algebraic algorithms that are mentioned in his book “Kitab al Jabr”. Second famous name is Muhammad Mosa who introduced the universality of the laws of physics. Muhammad Mosa had two brothers. Ahmad and Hassan both were renowned engineers. They wrote the “Book of Ingenious Devices”. In which one hundred devices were described. Among them there was an instrument that plays by itself. It was an earliest example of a programmable machine.

The first observatory in the Muslim world was developed in the regime of Caliph Al Mamoon in 828. Great scholars directed the construction of this observatory. Later it was called Mumtahan Observatory. Al-Mamoon built this observatory in Shammasiya. He placed Sanad bin Ali Al-Yahoudi as an incharge of this observatory. Sanad was an astronomer. He observed the moon, sun and the planets. Finally, hard work brought success to Sanad and his colleagues. He wrote an ephemeris which is the table of the calculated positions of a celestial object at regular intervals throughout a period. Later, Sanad accepted Islam at the hands of Al-Mamoon.

In 1258, when Mongol invaded Baghdad. Mongol patron Hulegul, the grandson of Chingis Khan killed the last Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustasim with entire of his family and cabinet. The doom of Abbasid Caliphate also brought tragic end to the House of Wisdom. Mongols destroyed all the libraries including the House of Wisdom. All the books and manuscripts were thrown into the muddy River Tigris. The river’s water turned into black for 6 months due to the enormous quantity of books flung into it. That destruction of knowledge is indescribable.